The Strange Story Of Neil Haywood, The British Businessman Who May Have Been Killed By The Wife Of A Chinese Communist Party Boss

Much suspicion has surrounded the death of British businessman
Neil Heywood who was found dead in a Chongquing hotel room back
in November.

Official reports claim he died of alcohol poisoning, but friends
say he wasn't a heavy-drinker.

Moreover, his family was told he died of a heart-attack and his
body was cremated without an autopsy.

In the following months Heywood's death, in part, led to the
defection of Chongquing police chief Wang Lijun and eventually
the downfall of former Chongquing party chief Bo Xilai, who was
today dismissed from the Politburo and the Central Committee.

Meanwhile, Bo's wife Gu Kailai has been taken into custody on
suspicion of 'intentional homicide'.

But little is known about Heywood and his ties with Bo. Some
suggest Bo had him done for having an affair with his wife, while
others suspect that he had a business dispute with Gu.

Who was Neil Heywood?

Heywood was a long-time Chinese resident who favored pale linen
suits and spoke Mandarin.
Jeremy Page of the Wall Street Journal reports that Heywood
first met Bo through his wife Wang Lulu who hails from Dalian in the Liaoning
province in Northeast China, where Bo served as Mayor between
1993 - 2000. Lulu it is reported had connections with Gu a
prominent lawyer.

Heywood also had some other tenuous connections with Bo's family.
Heywood attended Harrow school in north-west London, where Bo's
son Bo Guaga also attended classes. He is said to have helped the
younger Bo during his time at Papplewick, Harrow and later
Balliol College, Oxford.

Heywood acted as a freelance consultant helping resolve business
disputes and gaining access to government officials in China. He
did some work for British advisory firm Hakluyt & Company
founded by former officers with the British intelligence service
MI6. Details of his work are not known, but Page suspects that he
was involved in credit checks on Chinese companies, gathering
business intelligence, and corporate investigations.

Heywood and his friend Christopher Boddington, an accountant at
PriceWaterhouse Coopers ran a consultancy, Heywood Boddington
Associates, according to
The Telegraph. Through this firm they helped Manganese
Bronze, makers of the black cab study the Chinese market. He is
also said to have been a part-time dealer of Aston Martins and
Rolls Royce.

Shady financial dealings and a possible
affair

Some suspect that Bo had Heywood killed for having an affair with
his wife Gu. China's
Boxun News (via Want China Times) alleges that Heywood was
murdered by Che Keming, former director of China's National
Security Agency in Dalian.

But most reports suggest that Heywood was involved with sketchy
financial dealings with Bo and his wife.
Want China Times reports that Heywood acted as a "acted as a
"white glove" for Bo's money laundering activities and that he
was a business consultant for a firm run by Bo's wife." And the
WSJ's Page had previously reported that Heywood feared for
his life because he had fallen out with the wife of a senior
Communist Party leader.

Heywood reportedly told friends that his relationship with Gu had
disintegrated after Gu began to suspect that she had been
betrayed by someone in the family's inner circle. She had
reportedly grown paranoid and erratic and asked Heywood to
divorce his Chinese wife and swear an oath of loyalty and fallen
out with him after he refused.

It remains unclear which way this investigation will turn. If Gu
is found guilty of murder and if Bo is in anyway implicated in
the crime they will likely be punished like a common Chinese
citizen. But many argue that this has been nothing but a smear
campaign aimed at destroying Bo's credibility during China's year
of political transition.

Bo and his family have disappeared from public life since his
dismissal. Heywood is survived by his widow and their two
children.